Why Golden Syrup is so good for you – Brandy Snaps

According to the Tate & Lyle Golden Cookery Book, circa early 1960’s, I picked up on holiday Golden Syrup is really rather good for you.

Golden Syrup isn’t just one sugar – it’s three: sucrose, glucose and fructose. So it gives you triple-sugar-energy. One reason why Golden Syrup is so good for children is that it stops them getting overtired and fretful. Give your children plenty of Golden Syrup. Give it to them often – The Golden Cookery Book

Can you imagine a child after a daily dose of Golden Syrup particularly after the recommended bedtime snack (according to this glorious book) of Golden Syrup stirred into a wholesome glass of milk? The advice in this book is rather like some of the suggestions in some of my other vintage cookbooks extolling the virtues of cigarettes and opium. It does make you wonder what advice given out now will be scoffed at in the future. I picked up two other books while in Richard Booth’s Bookshop. A McDougalls flour baking book and a Domestic Economy textbook from 1890’s but neither have such fabulous advice as this gem of a book.

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Now I love Golden Syrup as a baking ingredient and thankfully I have no overtired and fretful children to worry about. After seeing the trailer for this week’s Great British Bake Off I knew I had to try the Brandy Snap recipe I had seen in The Golden Cookbook. I remember these as a child for being rather posh and the prime serving suggestion of a brandy snap that had been filled with as much squirty cream as possible and if you were feeling particularly flush a garish glace cherry to decorate each end.

This recipe curiously omits brandy (unlike most other Brandy Snap recipes I’ve looked at) but for pure authenticity I stuck to the recipe word for word. Warning this recipe makes lots of brandy snaps. We’re talking about 60 brandy snaps! They do however keep well in an airtight box or do what I did and dish them out to some very pleased friends. Unless you have a line of industrial ovens and a bevy of helpers it’ll be nigh on impossible to make these in one go. The best way is to be a production line. While one tray is baking, roll and set the freshly baked brandy snaps, set out tray with fresh mixture then swap with the tray in the oven once they are ready. The raw mixture gets easier to work with once it’s cooled down a bit. The trick for rolling them is to wait 3-4 minutes once they are out of the oven. Any sooner they will be too soft and hot to roll, later and they begin to set and crack before you have formed them into the right shape. If you find they have hardened too much to shape put the tray back in the oven briefly to soften them. Instead of rolling into a tube shape you could shape on the bottom of a small pudding bowl to make brandy snap baskets. Of course you are working with hot sugar, be careful. Hubs will tell you how much hot sugar burns after he accidentally went to retrieve a metal spoon that had fallen into a saucepan of boiling toffee.

I challenge you to try and take a simple photo of brandy snaps without it looking a bit sordid.

I love golden syrup, I used to have syrup sandwiches for tea on swimming night as a kid! I also remember my Mum making brandy snaps as they were one of her favourites. I think I used to help spoon the cream in as Mum didn’t really go in for fancy stuff like piping. I remember the sugar burns too. I’d never get through 60!

In my defence I made the brandy snaps on Sunday morning, but by Sunday evening we realised we urgently needed a post-holiday health kick. Don’t forget, Golden Syrup is healthy for me according to Tate & Lyle!

Adore the ‘sordid’ pic. I’ve just come back from the UK with a couple of vintage cook books so I’m going to be on the look out for other dubious health claims now. Brandy snap baskets make an impressive, if slightly 70s style, edible holder for ice cream etc. You just mould them over some ramekins.

Nice blog. Would you have any specific information on whether this contains corn syrup or is processed in the same manner as corn syrup? I’ve seen this in the markets in Los Angeles but have always stayed away from unhealthy processed sugars since they cause such distress to the body. I am looking for information now but thought you might want to post it. Thank you for such fun recipes.

From what I understand Golden Syrup and Corn Syrup are two very different products. Golden Syrup is essentially sugar cane juice that has been partially evaporated to give its syrup texture. Here in the UK it is hard to get Corn Syrup, in recipes that call for it we just replace it with Golden Syrup. However, if a recipe calls for Golden Syrup it’s not always recommended you replace it it with Corn Syrup. Although they have similar properties they have a different taste. I have a pupil with corn/maize allergy and they have no problem with Golden Syrup. I also haven’t heard concerns about Golden Syrup like I have with Corn Syrup.

After both reading this and watching GBBO last night, I really want to give these a go now! I’ve only ever eaten brandy snaps out of a packet. Me and my husband love them so I really should try them :-)

Aww this made me all nostalgic – I was given a copy of the Lyle’s golden syrup cookbook when I was a kid (I think I still have it somewhere). What always amazed me was the sheer number of savoury recipes into which they’d inserted golden syrup for no logical reason (other than to sell more ‘healthy’ sugary goo)! Brandy snaps are pretty much the only thing I’d use it for myself…..

I adore brandy snaps and used to make them every Christmas in NZ as a pudding treat, along with a pav, of course LOL You recipe is much easier than the one I am used to so will definitely give them a go :o)